


Hi

by MsJackofAllFandoms



Series: 30 Day Writing Challenge 2011 [21]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But also slash if you squint, Ficlet, Gen, Percy-centric, Reflective style piece, This really is gen, the start of a beautiful friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-15
Packaged: 2018-09-28 04:36:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10072025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsJackofAllFandoms/pseuds/MsJackofAllFandoms
Summary: Hi is a very small word, but it can lead to big things.





	

_Hi: hahy_  
/ˈhaɪ/  
–interjection  
used as an exclamation of greeting; hello!  
  
  
“Hi.”  
  
The word was small, consisting of two letters, used as to signify the notice of another person’s presence in the room, or the start of a conversation. It was a friendly gesture of politeness and openness, a way to say “I wish to greet you hello in an informal manner, and maybe start a conversation with you if you wish to reciprocate.”  
  
Unfortunately for Percy, that was as far as his communications skills extended at that point in time. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. The boy could chatter on about amazing facts about this, that and the other, things he’d mostly read in books or been told. He could talk about his family until he was blue, or in his case red, in the face. But he knew other people found those kind of things boring, and he always found himself second guessing what it was he had to say, other than things about lessons and rules. It wasn’t what people wanted to talk about.  
  
“Hey, Percy right?” his dorm mate had asked on the first night of Hogwarts. Both eleven years old, and the only ones sorted into Gryffindor that year.  
  
“Yes. Percy Weasley.” He’d replied. Short and simple, as to not scare off the other boy just yet with unnecessary information the other boy had never asked for.  
  
“Oliver. Oliver Wood,” The brown haired boy had replied, his smile big and friendly. “Where are you from?”  
  
It was the start of a very strange friendship.   
  
Five years later, when his two younger, twin brothers were in their third, and his youngest brother was in his first, when he’d been made prefect for being a stickler for the rules and a fan of organisation and attention to detail, when he was busy with homework and prefect duties and helping classmates and younger students with their homework, his friendship with Oliver waned somewhat. He felt it was alright, because Oliver had his own busy life with eating, sleeping, dreaming, breathing, practicing and playing quidditch, with homework stuffed in somewhere.   
  
But it was alright, because as long as he could get in that detrimental “Hi,” in every so often, (after all, he and Oliver still shared a dorm room) even if he didn’t always get a coherent response, it was better than the silence he’d somehow found himself in, between spouting off rules and regulations and facts about stuff he’d read from books that no one else listened to.  
  
Hi might have been a small word, but to him, it was a very powerful word. And, he supposed, the cloud of silver lining was that, at least if his only companion is too busy to listen, they he didn’t need to carry on a conversation further than the initial word.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for my 30 Day Writing Challenge. Originally written April 2011


End file.
